Apparently I am having trouble getting the photo to load. The cake is entitled Modern Black, White and Gold Wedding Cake. It goes from White top tier to a black bottom tier and it has what appears to be "flocking" of gold splattered over it. If anyone is old enough to remember what a "flocked snow Christmas tree" is; then you will know what I mean by flocking.

I've seen a technique, similar to this, applied by putting the gold sugar onto your hand and pressing it into the sides, and whatever sticks is what's on the cake. Does that make sense? I looks like sanding sugar that has been airbrushed gold or is already gold. The cake looks like it's airbrushed gold. Maybe airbrush your cake and when it's still wet press the sugar onto it so it sticks. I hope I make sense.

Thank you knlcox, that helps a lot. Yes, reginaherrin, that's the cake. It looked like a splatter technique but I think your ideas of sugar or sprinkles pressed into the cake is a much better idea. I'm going to practice on my cake dummies first. Thank you both for the help.

I also think it is brown sugar shaken in a jar with gold food dust and then thrown on the cake. I assume the cake had been painted randomly with food glue before the bombardment with the sand. The background colour between the black and white looks like airbrush gold.

Hey yellowdog, I was wondering how you ended up doing this cake. I have to do it next week. Do you have any tips? What I'm thinking is start off with a gray bottom tier and white top tier both in fondant. Begin with airbrushing the gradient black, probably stopping to let it dry between coats and before I start adding the gold. After I add the gold letting it dry a bit before adding the sprinkles. I am going to try to pat them gently into the cake since airbrush makes it sticky a bit. And pray to the cake gods that I don't smudge it with my hands! Any help is appreciated!

carcher2: This cake was the bane of my existence. I ended up covering the bottom tier with black fondant and the top with white. I air brushed gold on both the top and bottom tiers in the middle. While the black fondant was still damp from the air brushing I hand placed the gold sanding sugar. I couldn't find gold sanding sugar so I bought white sanding sugar in the cake isle of Walmart and used Wilton liquid colors--three drops of gold and two of yellow. Just have to play with it to get the golden color right. I then covered the top of the bottom tier (where the top and bottom tiers came together) with the sanding sugar. I laid it on thick. I was very disappointed in the cake but the couple and their families loved it. Everyone was very happy with it. I even applied some of the sanding sugar toward the bottom on the cake with a paint brush while it was still wet with airbrushing. (I air brushed the black fondant with black just to give it a little shine since the color was starting to dull). I wish you all the best with this cake. I had just bought an air brush two weeks before I got the order for this cake and had never used it before. I too wanted to start with gray and air brush it; but wasn't confident enough to give it a try. My bride wanted the bottom tier to be two different cake flavors as well so it was a barrel cake with a top tier. Hope any of this is helpful and again, I wish you the best of luck.